10 National Parks with the Fewest Visitors

Looking to escape the crowds of US National Parks in 2024? Places like Zion, the Great Smoky Mountains, and Yosemite are getting busier each year. However, there are still hidden gems that not many people know about. I’ve made a list of the least visited US National Parks to visit in 2024 so that you can experience nature the way it was meant to be experienced, in solitude.

1. Virgin Islands National Park

If you are looking for a beautiful beach vacation that also involves visiting a National Park, then Virgin Islands National Park is the Park for you. This National Park takes up most of the smallest island in the US Virgin Islands, St. John. 

Since this is a national park, the land on which it is located is protected. This makes the snorkeling here one of the best in the world. If you want the best snorkeling beach, head to Trunk Bay.

It has colorful fish, amazing coral reefs, and a gorgeous white sand beach that will blow your mind. This National Park is truly an amazing place that shouldn’t be the 10th least visited park in the US!

2. Great Basin National Park

This National Park is located right on the border of Nevada and Utah. If you are into hiking, the first thing you will want to do here is hike to the summit of Wheeler Peak. An 8-mile out-and-back trail will take you to the summit of this 13,063-foot mountain, the second tallest in Nevada. 

If hiking isn’t your thing, then do a Lehman Caves Tour. This is the longest cave system in Nevada, and tours have been happening here since 1885. Even though this is one of the least visited National Parks in America, you still need to reserve a spot before showing up because it sells out.

3. Dry Tortugas National Park

This National Park is probably the weirdest on the list. It consists of 7 islands 70 miles from the nearest city in Key West, Florida. The most famous thing in this National Park is a 19th-century fort called Fort Jefferson. It’s the largest brick masonry structure in North and South America and was originally built to help prevent piracy in the Caribbean.

When you are done looking at the old fortress, then you can head to one of the other islands for some of the best snorkeling ever. The best island for snorkeling is Loggerhead Key. Here, you’ll find the Windjammer dive site, a shipwreck from 1901, where you can swim around and see some incredible sea life.

4. Wrangell-St. Elias National Park

This is the first (but certainly not the last) Alaskan National Park on the list. There’s a reason Alaska is called “The Last Frontier”. It’s so remote and so hard to get around here that most people don’t even bother visiting. However, not adding Wrangell-St. Elias National Park to your National Park bucket list is a huge mistake. It’s the largest national park in America and stretches from the sea to the mountains, which are 18,000-foot tall!

The nearest city to this park is Glennallen, Alaska, and the only way to enter the park is by a 40- or 60-mile dirt road. Once you enter the park, you are basically on your own. There is no civilization for miles around, and you can enjoy the solitude of this wild landscape.

5. Katmai National Park

The Katmai National Park is most famous for the thousands of brown bears that live here, but that’s not the only wild animal you’ll see in this Park. There are also gray wolves, humpback whales, caribou, red foxes, and wolverine, to name a few. 

Some of the best things to do here‌ are the famous Brooks Falls, where you will find brown bears fishing for salmon. Also, the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, where the ash from a volcanic eruption in 1912 can get up to 700 feet deep in this incredible valley. Lastly, Naknek Lake which is a glacial lake surrounded by gigantic mountains and is great for fishing.

6. North Cascades National Park

This National Park is three hours from Seattle, Washington, known as “The American Alps”. The best things to do here are driving down the North Cascades Highway, hiking the Cascade Pass trail, and driving to the Diablo Lake Overlook. This national park has many road lookout points and is so stunningly beautiful. I don’t know how it could be the 5th least visited national park.

If you are looking for something more extreme, there’s lots of wilderness mountaineering. If you get deep into the Park, you will climb unnamed mountains that have most likely never been summited or set foot on.

7. Isle Royale National Park

Isle Royale National Park is a small cluster of islands in a remote section of Lake Superior. It is right on the border of Canada and can only be reached by ferry, seaplane, or private boat. The biggest island in this Park is Isle Royale, surrounded by over 450 smaller islands!

The Greenstone Ridge Trail is one of the park’s top attractions. It’s a 40-mile-long hiking trail that crosses Isle Royale island and is the only way to see the island since there are no roads. You can also canoe around the smaller islands, a great way to see the park from a different perspective.

8. Lake Clark National Park

This National Park in Alaska preserves the land of the Dena’ina (indigenous Alaskans). There are no roads in Lake Clark National Park, which means you will have to fly in or take a boat. 

One of the most popular activities that you can do here is to view wild bears in their natural habitat. The best place to do this is in Chinitna Bay, Silver Salmon Creek, and Crescent Lake. Crescent Lake is one of the top attractions in the Park and is in the heart of the Chigmit Mountains. It has amazing mountain views and is a great place to go fishing.

9. Kobuk Valley National Park

Kobuk Valley National Park is in Alaska and is known for its caribou, sand dunes, the Kobuk River, and Onion Portage. The dunes here are the largest active dunes in the Arctic at around 200,000 acres. Another popular place is Onion Portage, an archeological site where Inupiat (a group of indigenous Alaskans) have gathered for over 8,000 years.

Kobuk Valley is in the Arctic Circle and is very remote and has no roads, which means the only way to get there is by plane to one of the nearby cities and then hiking in.

10. Gates of the Arctic National Park

With fewer than 10,000 visitors per year, this may be the least visited National Park in the USA, but I would argue that it is one of the most beautiful. This Alaskan National Park has some of the most beautiful mountains, valleys, lakes, and rivers I’ve ever seen.

The reason why no one visits here is because there are no roads inside the park. The only way to see it is by air or hiking. However, there are no official hiking trails here either. If you want to get off the beaten path truly, you need to add this national park to your bucket list.